


and just one mistake is all it will take (burn everything you love then burn the ashes)

by OsleyaKomWonkru



Series: Hopes for Season Six [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy is a jerk, Bellamy needs his heart, Campfire chats, Discussion of PTSD, Episode: s05e11 The Dark Year, F/M, Gen, Jackson and Miller Share Hard Truths, Jackson is Angry, Loyalty, M/M, Miller is Pissed Off, Octavia isn't here but this is her story, Post-Episode: s05e13 Damocles Part 2, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season 6 Speculation, TV science, the head and the heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 06:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17823788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsleyaKomWonkru/pseuds/OsleyaKomWonkru
Summary: Sitting around a campfire on the new planet and angered over his betrayal, Jackson and Miller feed Bellamy the hard truths about what happened in the bunker, everything he was too blind to see about his sister, and her trauma that he only made worse.When Bellamy doesn't know how to reconcile everything he's heard with everything he's done, Clarke reminds him of what had always been his greatest strength.“Tell me, Bellamy, have you ever stopped to wonderwhywe’re loyal to her?” Miller looked around the fire at the others. “Any of you? Feel free to chime in anytime.”“Let Bellamy go and you can tell us.” Echo said, a note of warning in her voice.“Would it change anything?” Miller asked, looking at each person in turn. “If you knew what we went through? The impossible situations we were in, time and time again? Whatshedid to get us out of them? All it cost her to do so?”





	and just one mistake is all it will take (burn everything you love then burn the ashes)

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be honest - I'm worried that Miller is going to go back to being a Bellamy loyalist in S6. But I have to hope that he won't. I have to hope that Miller and Jackson are going to stay loyal to Octavia, and that they'll be the ones to tell Bellamy the truth of what happened to her. I have to believe this is why they're a part of adventure squad in S6, because if they're just there to be taken away from Octavia so that she has even fewer people that she can rely on, me and Jason are going to need to have some words.
> 
> Now, being that the entire poison algae storyline has a huge helping of TV Science, I've had to use TV Science too in Jackson's details of how it all went down and what side effects it could have. I'd prefer to be accurate, but when the established plot I'm working from doesn't allow for accuracy, well, I have to make concessions too. Sigh.
> 
> This is set in my "Hopes for Season Six" 'verse.

It had been three days.

Three days since they’d landed on the new planet.

Three days trekking around the coast of a lake, with forest and mountains beside them.

Three days since Miller had last spoken to Bellamy.

Longer than that since Jackson had. Jackson couldn’t even _look_ at Bellamy. Any time he tried, all he could see was Octavia hovering on the edge of death as he worked frantically to find a way to save her.

Bellamy had done that to her. He had no idea just how close his sister had come to death.

And Clarke… Jackson couldn’t look at her either. Knowing that she’d been the cause of their people being slaughtered in the gorge, of all of the hopeless wounds he’d tried to treat… they’d been good friends, once. But that was in a world many centuries and light years away.

He had new loyalties now, and a century of cryosleep hadn’t changed that. So it bothered him - and Miller too - that they’d agreed to go on this mission, but that Bellamy went back on his word as soon as it was too late to turn back. Bellamy had promised Miller that he’d leave Octavia in cryosleep, so that she could have peace, but then as they’d been heading down, he’d radioed Raven and told her to expect Octavia - having left her pod on a timer so that she’d wake up alone.

Miller hadn’t spoken to Bellamy after that. And people were starting to notice that it was deliberate on both his and Jackson’s parts.

So of course Clarke took it upon herself to try to fix it, coming to sit next to Jackson by the campfire while Miller was on watch on the other side of their encampment.

“You haven’t talked to me since that day in Polis.” She said. “Please, talk to me, Jackson. It’s over. We’re far away from all of that now. You don’t need to be afraid.”

“I was never afraid. Not in the bunker. And after it was open, I was afraid twice.”

“When was that?”

Jackson turned his head to face her, expression stone cold. “When our army was ambushed in the gorge and I thought I would never see Nate again.”

Clarke looked down, not meeting his eyes. “And the other time?” she whispered.

“When Bellamy poisoned Octavia and she almost died. That was also because of you.”

“I didn’t ask Bellamy to do that.”

“But you’re the reason he did.”

“My sister survived.” Bellamy said, from across the campfire. “So it is a moot point anyway.”

“No. It isn’t.” Jackson said, standing up to face down Bellamy. “Does everyone here know what you did? That you _poisoned your own sister_ because you couldn’t be bothered to understand her? That you were trying to make a deal with the very people holding half of your friends in captivity? Does it not matter at all that she almost died?”

“Murphy survived. She would have too.”

Jackson stepped right up to Bellamy, staring him down. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

“Hey.” Miller interrupted, coming in from his watch to stand next to Jackson, rubbing his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“I’m about to tell Bellamy the truth of how he almost killed his sister.”

“Right. That.” Miller glared at Bellamy. “Carry on then.”

“Jackson, please.” Clarke said. “Let’s sit down and talk about this together.”

“Stay out of this, Clarke.” Miller warned. “Bellamy needs to hear this.”

“Fine. Tell me what you need to tell me, then get out of my face.” Bellamy said, crossing his arms.

“You fed your sister toxic algae.” Jackson’s voice was cold and clinical. “If your aim was to simply render her unconscious for a week, as you claim, you gave her what amounted to an overdose. In the concentration you dosed her with, it would have been fatal if left untreated. Even though it should have been obvious to you from living with us - since you knew the farm was dying and was already dying before you opened the bunker so we’d been trying to survive, not knowing if we were ever getting out - the fact that she had been chronically malnourished for six years seems to have escaped you. That matters if you’re trying to give someone a so-called ‘safe’ amount of a toxin.

“The algae contained neurotoxins which led to almost immediate paralysis and breathing difficulties, rendering her unconscious. The nasal cannula was able to get her breathing relatively normally, otherwise I would have had to intubate her - that is, shove a large tube down her throat through her mouth, or cut her throat open and insert the tube there, both of which would have caused her lasting pain, since her throat was already irritated and swollen from consuming the algae.

“She experienced acute liver and kidney failure, and had I not started the dialysis almost immediately after she was found, she could have been dead from multiorgan failure within hours. The toxins raised her temperature rapidly, and a high fever like that could have led to seizures. Seizures are still a possibility, not only because of the fever she had, but because of potential neurological damage that she may have sustained while unconscious. She may not have experienced any seizures while we were marching on the valley, but that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t still happen now. Luckily she has Raven with her, and Raven knows how to deal with seizures, should she be experiencing any.

“But if any of her organs fail again, I’m not sure what we could do, because we don’t have the organs to transplant if she needs them, nor are there sufficient medicinal stores on the mothership to help delay such a scenario.” Jackson paused, seeing if his words were having any impact, but Bellamy’s look was inscrutable. “It is also possible that the high nitrogen content of the algae could have burned her stomach lining, which could have lingering effects on her ability to eat and drink normally. Our simple ration bars or healthy algae might not harm her since they’re relatively basic, but if we start getting a more varied diet again, then that could give her problems.

“I’m telling you all of this, because it isn’t as simple a case as ‘she’s awake now, she’s all better’ - because that is unlikely to be true. There could be all sorts of side effects that I haven’t even thought of. And at any rate, any potential physical side effects… they pale in comparison to the mental toll it took on her.” Jackson continued. “You have no idea what she had to deal with while leading the bunker. But having known her and been her friend and supported her through all of that madness, I can tell you with certainty that the effects of what you did to her overshadow everything else. I’m no expert in mental health, but she already had post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal tendencies before you opened the bunker, and then _you made each of those worse._ Let that sink in for a moment.”

His piece said, Jackson stepped back, Miller staying firmly by his side, eyes on Bellamy as they waited for a reaction.

“I didn’t know.” Bellamy said quietly. “But that doesn’t change anything. She needed to be stopped.”

“Why?” Miller asked, stepping into the space in front of Bellamy that Jackson had vacated. “That valley was rightfully ours and you know it. She had a plan to get us there. A plan that would have worked had we not been _betrayed.”_ He glared at Clarke, and then back to Bellamy. “Which wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t taken it upon yourself to be the saviour in a situation you knew nothing about. Octavia had a plan to get us to the valley. _You_ are the one who broke it, and the reason most of our people got killed. Not her. It wasn’t her fault, despite everything you told her.”

“Miller, my sister isn’t your queen anymore. You don’t have to defend her. She doesn’t control you now.”

Miller grabbed Bellamy by his collar. _“She never did.”_ He growled into Bellamy’s face. “Did you ever stop to think about that? We’re not a bunch of brainwashed gibbering idiots following the great and infallible Blodreina.”

“You sure about that? Because that place definitely looked like a cult.”

“Tell me, Bellamy, have you ever stopped to wonder _why_ we’re loyal to her?” He looked around the fire at the others. “Any of you? Feel free to chime in anytime.”

“Let Bellamy go and you can tell us.” Echo said, a note of warning in her voice.

“Would it change anything?” Miller asked, looking at each person in turn. “If you knew what we went through? The impossible situations we were in, time and time again? What _she_ did to get us out of them? All it cost her to do so?”

“She bore it, so you didn’t have to.” Clarke said, as Miller let go of Bellamy and turned to face her. “I do know. My mother told me about the Dark Year when we were in Shallow Valley. I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.”

“For us, or for her?” Miller asked, skeptical.

“Both.”

“Clarke?” Bellamy asked cautiously. “Am I going to want to hear this?”

“It’ll change the way you look at your sister forever. But right now, given how things are strained between you… I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. You said you forgave me because the Commander - because Madi told you to. I was harsh to judge Octavia from what my mother told me, but Madi - she reminded me of what we’d done to save our people, and - we have no right to judge your sister. Not like we did. You remember that day in her research lab. After we discovered the worms. She told us just how hypocritical we were being, we had no way to justify ourselves, and yet - and yet we still thought we could take matters into our own hands and… and look where that ended up.” Clarke looked at the sky. “Over a hundred years in the future on a new planet, everything we knew gone, and friends dead along the way.”

“Family.” Bellamy murmured, looking at Echo and across the fire at Murphy and Emori. “Monty and Harper were more than friends to us.”

After a moment of silence, Clarke spoke again. “Go ahead, Miller. They should hear it from someone who was there.”

Miller exchanged a glance with Jackson, and they sat back down, squeezing each other’s hands for reassurance.

“I’m sure you’re all looking for some grand story about the fighting pit.” Miller said. “But that - that’s just justice. I don’t know why it seems so horrifying to those of you born on the Ark, because it was more fair than floating people for similar crimes. There was at least the chance to survive, I don’t know why you can’t see that.”

“Bloody fights every day are very different from quietly floating someone.” Bellamy retorted.

“Every day?” Miller asked, exasperated. “Have any you even bothered to do the math? There was an average of a fight a month. If several people died every day then there wouldn’t have been anyone left.”

“Let’s hear about the Dark Year.” Shaw said. “I heard that phrase in passing from Kane when he was with us. I don’t know the details, but I know it is the reason he called Octavia the devil.”

“If anyone was the devil in that situation, it was him.” Miller said, expression stony. “If he’d just done what we all needed to do, she wouldn’t have had to sacrifice her soul to save us.” He looked at Jackson. “And we respect the sacrifice she made so that we all could live. What was that you said, Clarke? She bore it, so we didn’t have to? You’re right. She saved the human race. Just so you all could come in and destroy it.” He sneered in Bellamy’s direction. “So that you could destroy _her._ She needed your love and acceptance. And you denied it to her every step of the way. Even before you knew a damn thing. And then you tried like hell to prevent her from the only thing that would, in her eyes, absolve her of everything she’d had to do.”

“Fighting an unwinnable war was the only way she could absolve herself?” Bellamy asked, skepticism clear in his voice.

“After everyone finally started fighting on the same side, we won that war in fifteen minutes.” Miller said harshly. “Clearly not as unwinnable as you seem to think. But what I _meant_ was lead her people to the promised land. To the peace and hope for humanity that we’d already been fighting for for years. To make everything we’d had to do to get there worth it.”

“So will we be getting to that part soon, or…?” Murphy asked. “I mean, I think I know, but don’t leave us in suspense.”

“It won’t be exactly what you’re thinking.” Jackson said.

“What, you mean you didn’t have to eat people to survive?” Murphy quipped. Everyone but Miller, Jackson and Clarke looked at him in horror. “What? I can’t be the only one thinking it. Why else all the hush hush secrecy?”

Bellamy looked aghast, turning to Clarke. “Tell me he’s wrong. Tell me that didn’t happen.”

“I can’t tell you that.” Clarke said sadly. “But it also isn’t my story to tell.”

“Jackson. Miller.” Bellamy implored. “Please.”

“Please what, Bellamy?” Miller asked. “‘Please tell me that my little sister wasn’t a cannibal?’ ‘Please tell me that she didn’t have to enforce full compliance at gunpoint, because if people starved to death they weren’t just choosing death for themselves, but choosing death for everyone else since their bodies wouldn’t be able to provide suitable nourishment?’ ‘Please tell me that taking away their choice didn’t fundamentally _break_ her?’ ‘Please tell me that I didn’t try to force her to stay in a place that is full of ghosts that haunted her every moment of every day?’”

“Stop. Please.” Bellamy begged, covering his face with his hands. “Stop.”

“Why should I? You didn’t.” Miller snarled. “You made her feel like shit every damn day you were there with us. You almost killed her. You made her hate herself for being alive. She almost sacrificed herself for your unworthy ass, and you still couldn’t tell her you loved her. Yeah, she told me about that. Because I’m a better brother to her than you are. She knows she can trust me. That I won’t give up on her if things get hard. She knows that I’m not like you.”

“Miller that’s enough.” Echo snapped, rubbing Bellamy’s shoulder. “You didn’t know, Bellamy. You didn’t know any of it.”

“He could have asked.” Jackson said, looking straight at Echo and Bellamy. “He could have asked any of us. And if he honestly wanted to understand, we would have told him.” He turned to look at Clarke. “You did ask at first, and I appreciate that. But we never got a chance to talk then, and after you came back from the wasteland - you weren’t interested anymore. None of this is easy for us to talk about. There is no simple way to explain what life was like down there. It was something we wanted to leave behind. But despite how many people told you that, it wasn’t something that you could accept.”

“Then why not accept the surrender and share the valley?” Clarke asked. “Diyoza’s deal -”

“First off, Diyoza’s deal was never offered to us.” Miller said. “It was offered to you, and with the condition that Octavia be ‘dealt with’.”

“That’s not true.” Clarke said. “Diyoza would have accepted a surrender from Octavia too.”

“And why should we ‘unconditionally surrender’ to people who wanted us dead?” Miller asked. “The very first day, the prisoners tried to kill us. Then they fired missiles into the desert, trying to kill us again. They waged psychological warfare in Polis to divide us. They offered a deal to you but not to Octavia directly. These are not the marks of someone who wants peace on equal terms. These are the marks of someone who wants to divide and conquer and subjugate.” Miller looked at Shaw. “You were with them. What do you say?”

Shaw sighed. “If it was just Diyoza and her crew, then I would have said yes, you could trust her to make a real peace. But as we all know, it wasn’t just her. She had McCreary and his crew to worry about as well, and that made everything harder for her. And after hearing what was going on in Polis - sorry guys, but Bellamy, Clarke - you guys were playing McCreary’s role to Octavia. Everything you did meant that she had to do something she would have rather not done, because she had to try to reign you in somehow, but then you just kept pushing and pushing. Octavia only won against you while Diyoza lost to McCreary because Octavia had nothing left to lose by doing so, while Diyoza did. Which made her more vulnerable.”

“Enough of this already.” Murphy groaned. “Let’s just accept that we all screwed the pooch and that’s why the Earth is dead.”

“I agree.” Emori said. “The war is over, and we’re all so far away now - both in distance and time. The only thing we should worry about now is how we move on as a team. That includes those of us here on the ground, and those that we left on the mothership. Regardless of who we were before, Wonkru, Spacekru, Eligius, Shallow Valley - now we’re all on the same team. Team Earth. I know it won’t be easy, but if all we can do is fight each other - we won’t be ready to deal with any threats that we might face here.”

“There is no moving on.” Miller said. “Not until there’s justice.”

There was silence around the campfire, until Bellamy got to his feet. “Fine. If that’s what you want. Echo, can I borrow your sword?”

“What the hell, Bellamy?” Miller asked. “You want to fight me?”

“That’s the Wonkru way, isn’t it?”

“You think that’s what we care about? Way to miss the point of everything we said.”

“What else can I do?” Bellamy asked, holding his arms out in surrender. “What is it that you want from me?”

“Oh, I don’t know, an acknowledgement? An apology?” Miller kept going. “For you to stop treating your sister like shit? For you to sincerely apologize to her and acknowledge that you treated her like trash, and that you’re not going to do it anymore, because you’re going to leave her the fuck alone until she chooses to let you back in her life?’

“I’m sorry about what you all went through, okay?” Bellamy yelled. “I get it, it sucked. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. I wasn’t there, I can’t fully understand it. But how does that in any way justify what you did - and what _she_ did - after the bunker was open? She threatened Echo, she threatened me - and then she put me in that arena to die.”

“You opened the bunker, gave her ultimatums, and then almost got her killed when the people you made an alliance with opened fire on her.” Jackson said. “Several of our people died that night to protect her. You gave her a war. A war that near as I can see it, you and Clarke started. Yet you disparage her for finishing it?”

“She asked for me in medbay that night, you know that?” Miller said, standing up and going to face down Bellamy again. “She asked for me, not you. She told me that she’d hoped for years that you’d come and rescue her, like you always did. You landed in the arena just moments before she had to kill Kane - and she believed that it was the world telling her that everything would be all right again. That you were there for her and everything would be okay. But you weren’t, were you? The first conversation you had - you didn’t show her any compassion or empathy. You didn’t even _ask_ what she’d been through, you just judged her.”

“I was there that night too.” Jackson said, coming to stand next to Miller. “Bellamy, she’d thought it was going to be the happiest day of her life, that she finally had her brother again and she’d be free from everything that had broken her for the past six years. But you only made it worse. Her biggest dream turned into a nightmare. If you’d shown her any amount of compassion or empathy that day - it could have changed everything. If you’d recognized the trauma that she’d been through, if you had worked with her instead of fighting against her, if you’d just listened. To her, to any of us - everything would have been different.”

“They’re not wrong, Bellamy.” Clarke said quietly. “I was surprised too, by the way you acted. We didn’t understand it, but - but I tried to. You didn’t. You asked me how I survived, but you never asked her.” Clarke looked at the ground. “I know - I know I lost my mind when Madi showed up. I was so terrified for her. But tell me the truth - would Octavia have protected her?”

“Yes.” Miller said simply. “I know it might not look like it to any of you, and what it became wasn’t what she’d envisioned at the start either, believe me, but Wonkru was Octavia’s opportunity to build something that was hers. Somewhere she belonged, because she created it. She’d never felt that before - not really being Skaikru since she grew up isolated, but also not really being a grounder because she wasn’t born one of them. She was caught between worlds. So Wonkru was her chance to build her own world, and she protected it - she protected _us_ \- with everything she had. She sacrificed pieces of herself over and over again to make sure we’d live. Over those six years, and then also when the bunker was opened. She was no idiot, Clarke - she knew sooner or later people would realize the truth about Madi, and that they’d want her as a Commander. Why else do you think she wanted Madi as her second? So Madi could learn from her and be ready for that job when the right time came. After we won the valley. After we had peace. So that Madi wouldn’t have to make the hard choices and decisions that she’d had to.”

“I’m sorry for not trusting her.” Clarke said. “I really am. I know I can’t change the past, but - I am sorry. And I’ll tell her too, when we see her again.”

“Clarke. You believe them?” Bellamy asked.

“Yes.” 

Echo got to her feet and rested her chin on Bellamy’s shoulder. “I do too. Bellamy, when I left to go to the valley, I told you your sister needed you. I told you that something terrible had happened there - and as we see now, I was right. I hoped that you’d finally talk to her, work with her - but instead you endangered us all.”

“Endangered us - Echo, she was breeding the worms. She was going to send them into the valley where they would have killed all of you.”

“War demands sacrifices, Bellamy. I know, you’re not a warrior. You never have been, you don’t understand. But it’s the truth. If that would have given Wonkru victory, that’s what she should have done. I know, you would have mourned me and Raven and Murphy and Emori. But is it really any different now, as we sit here mourning Monty and Harper? And the deaths of over half of Wonkru? The loss of your sister’s sanity? The loss of the Earth that was our home? Were they all acceptable losses just so you could save the four of us?”

“No matter what we do, we always end up with no good choices.” Bellamy whispered, though his voice carried across the fire to everyone.

“You’re wrong.” Miller said. “You had good choices then. You have good choices now. Really simple ones, even. You can keep fighting everyone on what you know to be true, or you can admit what you’ve done wrong. You can apologize to us. You can apologize to her. And then maybe we can finally begin to have some closure, and she can finally have peace.”

“I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry.” Bellamy said, shrugging out of Echo’s touch, and storming off down the beach.

Echo and Clarke exchanged a look, and after a moment, Echo nodded, a silent agreement reached between them. Clarke left the campfire and followed Bellamy.

She caught up to him as he’d taken a seat on a log at the water’s edge, a hundred metres or so off from the group.

“Hey.” Clarke said, sitting down next to him. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t even know what I can say. And I know that’s not what they want to hear. It’s just… so much. And I don’t know what of it is true and what they’re just blowing out of proportion to make me feel bad.”

“The Dark Year? That was real. My mother told me all about it. That what happened was her fault, not Octavia’s, even though Octavia took all of the blame for it.”

“What happened exactly? They didn’t go into too much detail, just that - that Octavia had to make people eat, and that’s what broke her.”

“From what my mother said… there were a lot of people who were resistant to eating human flesh, Kane among them. My mother told Octavia that she couldn’t allow that. That if people starved to death, their bodies wouldn’t be able to provide sufficient nutrients, which would mean everyone else would die too. So she had to convince them. Convince Kane, specifically, because the others would follow his lead. Octavia tried to reason with them, to convince them, but - in the end she shot three people in the cafeteria before the others gave in and ate, starting with Kane. Just like my mother said they would.”

“And where was your mother? Where was Indra?”

“They both stood by and watched.”

“Why didn’t they do anything? Why didn’t Abby tell the people what was at stake? Why didn’t Indra stop her, why did she - Indra told me that she wanted to protect Octavia from herself, but why didn’t - why didn’t she start here, where it all began? Why did she let her do that on her own? None of this makes any sense.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t. It was a horrible situation, and I can’t even imagine what it was like. But I wonder, what would we have done? Would we have done any different?”

“Probably not.” Bellamy said heavily. “I can’t - I - just _looking_ at them, now knowing what they had to do - I just feel sick. But somehow they got through it. I don’t understand how.”

“Because of Octavia. That’s what Niylah told me before I even knew anything about what happened. Niylah said that things were really hard, but they got through it because of Octavia. I was skeptical, but she said ‘how do you explain the sun to someone who has never seen it’. Now I understand what she meant. How could we understand if we weren’t there? They all recognize what she did for them so that they would live. Do you remember what Dante told us in Mount Weather?”

“Deliverance comes at a cost. He bore it, so his people didn’t have to.”

“And you remember what I told you after, at the gate to Camp Jaha?”

“Which part?”

“Seeing their faces every day, it would remind me of what I did to get them there.” Clarke looked down. “And I ran. It helped, for awhile. Until it didn’t. But your sister - she couldn’t run. She couldn’t disappear. There was nothing she could do but see them, every day, see the places where she - there was no escape from it for her.” She looked back up at Bellamy. “That’s why she needed that war. That’s why she needed to get out of the bunker, get out of Polis, why she couldn’t trust a surrender to people who had already shown themselves to be untrustworthy. Even if she considered herself beyond saving - she needed to be able to give them what she’d promised. And if we’d just - if we’d just talked to her, and understood - maybe we’d still be there on Earth. Maybe more people would have lived.”

“And what about what Jackson said? About medical complications? Is it possible?”

“Well, Jackson is a doctor. He would know better than me. He treated her. I’ve known Jackson a long time, ever since I can remember, and he’s the kindest and most honest person I’ve ever known. He was really shaken by what you did to Octavia. He didn’t say all of that to be petty or vindictive - he said it because it really bothers him, what happened to her. That you didn’t consider every angle of what it could do to her before doing it.”

“I did it to save you.” Bellamy said, looking away, out across the lake.

“I know. You were thinking with your head, like I told you to before Praimfaya. But somewhere in there… you lost the heart that makes you who you are. We all changed over those six years, but there were some things that didn’t change.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like how much Octavia needed you.” Clarke said. “When we landed in the arena, after they broke open the roof… she was about to execute Kane. But then you appeared and she jumped into your arms like she always did after being separated from you. Everything else just vanished, and all she cared about was you. That really was all you needed to know. That’s what the Bellamy with the big heart would have known.”

“Clarke… my sister spent six years enforcing order by way of bloody gladiator fights and made them eat people for a year. _She_ ate people for a year.”

“And what haven’t we done to ensure the survival of our people? You know as well as I do that we’d do that and worse, if that’s what it took.”

Bellamy sighed. “Maybe that’s the part that bothers me the most. I never wanted any of that for her. I never wanted her to have to be in that sort of a position, to have to make those sorts of calls. I never wanted her to have to do what we’ve done.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it now. What’s done is done. All we can control is the future.”

“How do I even talk to her now? Knowing what she’s done? Knowing what I’ve done _to_ her?”

Clarke smiled a small smile, barely visible in the dark. She brought her hand up to his chest, resting it over his heart. “With this.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from “Centuries” and “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark” by Fall Out Boy.


End file.
